Floccinaucinihilipilification is the act or habit of esteeming or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by said means. Its pronunciation may vary from \'flä-chE-'nau-chE-ni-'hi-lE-'pi-lE-fI-'ca-shun\ [1] to "FLOK-sih-noh-see-NEE-hee-lee-PEE-lih-fih-KAY-shun" or "FLA-sih-NAH-see-nə-hill-lə-pill-lə-fih-kay-shun" or "FLOK-se-NÔ-se-NĪ-hil-e-PIL-e-fi-KĀ-shen."
It is the longest non-technical word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which presents it "as enumerated in a well-known rule from the Eton Latin Grammar". The OED dates its first use in literature at 1741 in William Shenstone's Works in Prose and Verse: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money".
Though the OED gives no specifics on its derivation, the word is said to have been invented as an erudite joke by a student of Eton College, who, upon consulting a Latin textbook, found four words connoting 'nothing' or 'worthless', combined them, and added verb endings:
- floccus, -i a wisp or piece of wool, used idiomatically as flocci non facio ("I don't care"; more literally "I don't give a wisp of wool")
- naucum, -i a trifle
- nihilum, -i nothing; something valueless
- pilus, -i a hair; a bit or a whit; something small and insignificant
In fact, as given in the first edition of the OED, the word includes four sets of quotation marks and is presented thus:
- "Flocci" "nauci" "nihili" "pili" fication
It is often spelled with hyphens, and has even spawned the back formations floccinaucical (inconsiderable or trifling) and floccinaucity (a thing of small importance). The OED appears to have overlooked floccinaucinihilipilificatious, which has one letter more than the nominal form, and means "small" or "insignificant."